My paternal and maternal grandparents migrated to the USA from Sicily between 1905 - 1912. Primarily from the Agrigento region of Southern Sicily. A few days ago I received my HVR1 mutations form Family Tree which designated me as Haplogroup U5a. I have not yet received the test results for HVR2.

Here are my mutations:16114A16192T16256T16270T16294T16526A

In reviewing and attempting to interpret these results, it appears that norther Europe and Scandinavia are the areas of focus for U5a. Being able to trace our family in Sicily, some back to over 200 years, I was expecting Greek (Agrigento was a historic Greek stronghold) or Moorish mtDNA roots. The only pausible explanation I can come up with is that my maternal line migrated to Sicily at the time of the Norman conquest of that region. When thinking about it, our family's physical type is tall, lean and light hair and eyes.

Your haplogroup is palaeolithic in Europe, then diffused overall, and it isn’t Northern at all. I think you’ll be able to answer your question about your more recent origin not only by the HVRII and III, but probably only by an FGS. Your haplogroup could be in Italy from many thousands of years or come more recently. Certainly it is European from tens of thousands of years.